All of Riordan's books put his heroes though non-stop peril to the point where the reader can barely catch her breath, but this was a whole other level. Not to mention the imagery was completely disgusting. ( )

epic :) damm it for a year wait ( )

epic :) damm it for a year wait ( )

Maybe it's just because I've read all of the books back to back to back for like a week, but this one, like the past couple felt a little slow for parts. That said, I think it was one of my favorites in the Heroes of Olympus series.

There was finally some character development that didn't relate to artificial drama. I felt like pretty much all of the newer characters (meaning everyone not from the OG PJO series) were kind of flat until this book. Like for Rick Riordan to write, what, 10 main characters?? (Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Jason, Piper, Leo, Frank, Hazel, Coach, Reyna, is that actually all of them??) that's a lot, and 7 introduced in 2 books, so there isn't much room to explore each of their characters very much. So until this book it mostly felt like a bunch of bland clones and Percy and Annabeth, IMO.

I'm not a huge fan of the fact that they're like all 15-16 and they're all dating?? But I do love the friendships that develop, the way Leo connects better with Hazel and Frank after learning about Frank's weakness, the way Jason supports Nico better after learning about his crush, like the vulnerability between the kids in this group and the relationships that come out of it are so much to me.

I am a huge fan of Percabeth despite not loving the couples, and this book was there with Percabeth content. But the whole ptsd package deal for them- I want to cry for them. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. After the (literal) cliffhanger ending in Mark of Athena I liked that I don't feel the need to jump into the last book of this series because OMGWTFINEEDTOKNOWWHATHAPPENS. I mean, I'll probably read it next anyway (I may have a Percy Jackson problem), but I don't feel compelled to pick up the book immediately. I can wait until tomorrow!

Anyway, this installment had loads of character development, but even with all that development Piper is still annoying. Her insecurity is really grating, especially since she can just (view spoiler) . We'll see if she gets any better in the next one. I don't know if she has a POV in the final book but it would be nice if she found some self esteem. ( )